Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs (27 page)

Ryan had another soccer game tonight. Once again, like every other game in the last seven weeks, Ryan opted to sit in the hallway while his teammates played on the indoor soccer field. Ryan’s ears were sensitive to the sound of the buzzer. To Ryan, the tone of the buzzer was like hearing the noise of thunderous rocket engines in a closed room.

Unfortunately, the buzzer was connected to the scoreboard and clock at the Centennial High School in Circle Pines, Minnesota, and was not capable of being disconnected. We had tried earplugs, earphones, and simply warning Ryan of the timing of the buzzer so he could be prepared, but it was all in vain.

As parents of Ryan, we would have done anything to see our son on the playing field with his teammates, who also have developmental disabilities. But our plan for the adaptive soccer season was simply to have Ryan practice with the team after school and then sit in the hallway during the games. Our hope was that hearing the buzzer’s sound from a distance would desensitize Ryan’s ears so he would gradually get used to it.

So week after week for two months, our family rushed through dinner only to sit in the hallway with Ryan during each home game—all with the goal of Ryan playing just five minutes toward the end of the season. The season progressed, and Ryan continued to support his team from the hallway. With just two home games left, Ryan’s big five-minute goal was coming up. The coach approached me and suggested that the time had come for Ryan to have a chance to play in his first game. I was so nervous!

Ryan’s needs were much more severe than the other athletes on his team. Ryan was thirteen years old and weighed a mere sixty pounds. He has Down syndrome, aspects of autism, and is nonverbal. He has had so many medical problems that he has endured forty-nine surgeries in his short life span. I questioned my motives for putting Ryan on the team, and at the same time primed Ryan for his big moment. Ryan’s coach had come up with a plan. Ryan would come out on the field immediately after the five-minute buzzer was activated, and then she would stop the clock with a few seconds left in the game. The buzzer would never go off when Ryan was on the field.

It worked! Ryan got on the field and kicked the ball! After the game, a team player’s dad approached me and said that Ryan must have kicked the ball three or four times. I proudly responded, “Six, but who’s counting?” Ryan had met his five-minute goal, and at the same time made his teammates and parents very proud!

With one home game left in the season, I had high hopes for what Ryan could accomplish at his last game.
Could Ryan actually sit on the bleachers with his other teammates?
Could Ryan play for six minutes?
Well, it turned out that Ryan was too scared to sit on the bleachers with his teammates, but he did sit on the top row of the bleachers with his hands cupped over his ears! This was a huge step, and we were very proud! The opposing team was from South Minneapolis. They were big, athletic kids and had a reputation for being very good players. With only one loss for the season, the South Minneapolis team came on strong from the start. After three minutes of play, the score was already 3 to 0. The game was going to be a blowout. As the evening progressed, the score became 12 to 0, and it was evident our team was going to be defeated. But it was also time for Ryan’s second chance at playing. He entered the field with ten minutes left and looked dumbfounded at the crowd. They were standing up and cheering for Ryan like he was in the Olympics going for the gold. Anybody observing from the outside would think there was a championship game in progress. Ryan dubiously stood on the field and didn’t know where he should run or what he should do. The coach saw Ryan’s confusion and, in an unprecedented action, joined Ryan on the playing field and guided him in play.

Ryan ended up standing directly in front of the opponent’s net. The South Minneapolis goalie was probably two and a half times the size of Ryan. He was a sharp-eyed, competitive player who took the game very seriously. I think he was the best player on the team. The ball was kicked to the goalie, who quickly grabbed it in search of an open teammate. Then, something came over this goalie—something that changed my life. After a short hesitation, the goalie set the ball on the ground and gently rolled it toward Ryan, who was standing about four feet away. Then the goalie walked over to the side and left the net wide open. Ryan kicked the ball and made a goal! Anybody in the stands who was not cheering was crying. Ryan celebrated one of the greatest moments of his life by impersonating Rocky, with his fist pumping high in the air and his feet in a celebratory trot. Ryan had just scored against the Minneapolis team!

Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with the compassion of the South Minneapolis goalie.
Who had taught him this level of benevolence? Was there any forethought put into his action, or did he suddenly have a burst of tenderness?
Wiping the tears from my eyes, I thanked the goalie for his actions. He simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “Yeah,” like it was nothing. But it was something—an act of selflessness for the benefit of his competitor. The goalie may not understand the impact of his actions until much later in life, but I will never forget the true meaning of the word “victory.”

Susan McMullan

Susan McMullan
received her bachelor’s degree in journalism and studied international journalism at the City University in London, England. She has worked in the field of radio advertising and recently taught a creative-writing class. Ryan continues to play soccer for Centennial High School’s adaptive soccer program. He graduated from the hallway to the bleachers and loves being a part of the team. Susan, along with her husband and two other children, are still cheering him on. Susan can be reached at [email protected].

What I Learned in Middle School

A
community that excludes even one member is no community at all.

Dan Wilkins

As one of only a handful of white teachers in a low-income, minority middle school, I had learned over the years that black or white, rich or poor, dig down a bit and kids are still pretty much kids. Most want love and approval from the adults in their lives, no matter what they would have you believe. Another thing I learned was not to expect miracles for the junior-high child with a disability. By this age, familial, academic, and behavioral patterns were often entrenched and slow to change. As a special-education teacher, I had learned to measure progress in small increments.

Such seemed the case when I read the file on Carlos, a fifteen-year-old Hispanic boy with a dysfunctional family and a long history of school failure. As a fifteen-year-old eighth-grade student, he was two years older than his classmates. Although Carlos functioned at a third-grade level in reading and a fourth-grade level in math, he had only recently been identified with a learning disability in language processing. In addition to this delay in identifying his academic difficulties, several days into the present school year, Carlos had yet to attend my special-education classes, and he wasn’t getting any younger. I marched down to the social worker’s office to get some answers.

“Where’s Carlos?” echoed Lena, the school social worker. “In bed!” I admired Lena’s ability to continue to maintain her optimism despite an overwhelming caseload of children and families.

“We can’t get him out,” she continued. “He’s only been with his permanent foster family for a few weeks. With his pattern of school phobia and depression, a new school and a new placement has just pushed him over the edge.” With sadness, she elaborated on some of the details of Carlos’s life. Carlos had lived with his mother and two younger brothers in a depressed neighborhood in a nearby city. He had been removed from his home and placed in a temporary foster home when his mother was convicted for selling crack cocaine. Carlos became a guardian of the state halfway through his seventh-grade year. He had been denied special-education services throughout his life due to his mother’s refusal to grant permission for the psychological and academic testing needed to identify him.

However, once he became a guardian of the state, the school wasted no time in evaluating Carlos and developing an Individual Education Plan to address his learning disability. Finally, after a lifetime of failure, Carlos would get the help he so desperately needed. But there was one
small problem: Carlos wasn’t having any. Damage done.

Later that same day, Lena came to tell me that an emergency meeting had been scheduled to develop a plan to get Carlos to school. His new foster parents, Fernando and Jose, would be attending the meeting.

“Yes, you heard right,” Lena said, in response to my raised eyebrows and look of surprise. “They’re a same-sex couple.”

“I didn’t know they allowed same-sex couples to foster,” I replied. “Don’t you think that would be confusing for Carlos at this point in his life?”

“See for yourself,” Lena said with an enigmatic smile.

It was quickly apparent at the meeting exactly what she meant. Well spoken, caring, and concerned, Fernando and Jose clearly had Carlos’s best interests at heart. Together,
we developed a plan for his first few days of school.

“I thought I’d let you see for yourself,” Lena said after the meeting. “They’ve fostered other difficult kids for us successfully, and they have a lot of experience.”

“They’re going to need it and more,” was my response. I had seen too many like Carlos to share Lena’s eternal optimism.

The next day I was teaching as usual, facing the front of the class with my back to the door, when a sudden hush filled the room. Eyes, easily distracted by the smallest event, shifted eagerly toward the door. Then came the thumping sound of jaws dropping to the floor.
What could have possibly affected my students this way?
I thought irritably as I turned to see the source of all the excitement. Tall, well dressed, and movie-star handsome, Carlos had arrived. Though he shook my hand politely, his eyes remained firmly fixed to the floor to the complete disappointment of all the teenage girls in the room.

Over the next days and weeks, the girls were doomed to further disappointment. All their titters, giggles, and flutters were for naught: Carlos wanted to learn. And what a joy he was to teach! Once he learned strategies to help him to process and retain information, there was no stopping him. Voraciously, he gobbled up whatever I taught him in big gulps. Almost as much fun to watch was the shock of the other students in the class. Carlos’s go-get’em attitude was unprecedented in the typically tormented lives of the middle-school special-education child. If Carlos were a truck, the school year was a wild ride down a steep highway. The day he received his first report card was the first day he met my eyes. It was then that I saw the first shy smile dawn reluctantly on his face.

I was almost as impressed by Fernando and Jose, whom I largely credited with Carlos’s transformation. There was never a day that Carlos was not well dressed or prepared for class. I had received several phone calls at night with homework questions from both foster parents. It was clear from my conversations that there were established rules and routines in the household for Carlos and his other foster sibling.

Then came the day that Carlos actually strode into my room, bursting with excitement: Fernando and Jose were taking him to see one of his biological brothers! It was the first of many such happy visits.

Graduation day was unusually bittersweet that year. Fernando, Jose, and all of Carlos’s brothers, both foster and biological, watched with obvious pride as Carlos accepted his diploma. After graduation, as I shook Carlos’s hand in congratulation, he whispered in my ear: “Miss, I have really good news!”

“Well, I heard you now have a girlfriend, is that it?” I answered with a twinkle.

“Oh, Miss, even better than that,” Carlos said with a light blush. “Fernando and Jose are going to adopt me!”

Like the spring crocus determined to push past the rocks and snow to reach grateful arms to the sun, Carlos had come home at last.

In the end, I learned something else that year—it’s never too late for love to make miracles happen.

Donna Larkin

Names have been changed to protect privacy.

Donna Larkin
received her master’s degree in special education from Southern Connecticut State University. She currently teaches seventh grade in Trumbull, Connecticut. She is happiest encouraging living things to grow.

Motherhood

M
other is the word for God in the eyes of children everywhere.

Eric Draven

I worked in a group home in Sherwood Park, Alberta, caring for eight adults with severe disabilities. At 3:00 every day the phone would ring.